It’s likely she wouldn’t have pursued a classroom career otherwise. In all, 51 community college-based teaching programs have launched across the country since the early 2000s.Īnd they’re attracting students like Nuñez Ardon, who became certified to run a K-8 classroom in June, at the age of 36. More community colleges around the country are starting to offer teacher education, said CCBA President Angela Kersenbrock. The number of people completing a teacher-education program declined by almost a third between the 2008-19 academic years, according to a report in March from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. The expansion comes at a good time: Teacher shortages have worsened in the past decade, and fewer undergraduates are going into teacher training programs. Six other states - Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada and New Mexico - have community colleges that offer degrees related to K-12 education, according to Community College Baccalaureate Association data. Banner Previous NextĪround the country, education programs remain far more common at four-year institutions. Ardon went through a program at Highline College, a community college, to train to be a teacher. All of the programs started within the last decade.įatima Nunez Ardon, a teacher in training, teaches Spanish to second graders at Madrona Elementary School in SeaTac, a suburb in Seattle, Wash., Wednesday, Sept. In Washington state, nine community colleges offer education degrees for teaching grade school and up. They can dramatically cut the cost and raise the convenience of earning a teaching degree, while making a job in education accessible to a wider diversity of people. Nuñez Ardon took an unusual path to the classroom: She earned her teaching degree through evening classes at a community college, while living at home and raising her four children.Ĭommunity college-based teaching programs like this are rare, but growing. in middle school speaking very little English, came to be a teacher. One day, for example, she talked about Salvadoran American NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio and his journey to the International Space Station.Īnother day, she told them her own life story - how she, an El Salvadoran immigrant who arrived in the U.S.

In her second-grade classroom outside Seattle, Fatima Nuñez Ardon often tells her students stories about everyday people realizing their dreams.

Finch elementary